i3 4th gen Haswell

[louis21ong]

Hey guys! So I currently have an i3-4170 and it works like A DREAM. I play MOBA games like Dota 2 and LoL everyday and the i3 like I said can take the beating from these games. Now that I have saved money for AAA games, is the i3 still worth it to keep? I'm planning on Buying Fallout 4, Bioshock Series, AC:Syndicate,Unity, and etc this coming black friday sales. I also have a GTX 750Ti that can run my current games at max settings @ 1080p.

 

I currently have $300 worth of savings to spend on myself (yay). My relative is asking me to swap out his i5 4590 to my i3 4170 + $60 since they only use the i5 for web browsing and not for gaming. So my question is that is the i5 REALLY NECESSARY for me to play these AAA games or is my i3 enough? 

[Ling]

Your i3 will definitely not perform as well as an i5. The i3 only has two cores, whereas an i5 has 4 (all of which can be leveraged for more frames). It should be a no-brainer, the i5 will have a massive performance boost with the extra 2 cores. So, yes, make the switch.

[Dabombinable]

Your i3 will definitely not perform as well as an i5. The i3 only has two cores, whereas an i5 has 4 (all of which can be leveraged for more frames). It should be a no-brainer, the i5 will have a massive performance boost with the extra 2 cores. So, yes, make the switch.

However not as much as you'd think since the i3 has hyperthreading.

[GDRRiley]

However not as much as you'd think since the i3 has hyperthreading.

No hyper treading does not make up as much as you may think

[Dabombinable]

No hyper treading does not make up as much as you may think

It still makes the i3 far better than a standard dual core and more than capable of playing current games. And hyperthreading gives the CPU 2 additional threads, each of which boosts the performance of each core by around 20%.

[Lotus]

In short, your current rig will struggle to reach 60 fps in demanding games even if you turn the settings down. The 750ti will also hold you back even if you replace your CPU. You might want to just hold on to your current system and run it until you encounter something that doesn't perform  the way you want it to and only upgrade once you hit that point.

[runit3]

I currently have $300 worth of savings to spend on myself (yay). My relative is asking me to swap out his i5 4590 to my i3 4170 + $60 since they only use the i5 for web browsing and not for gaming. So my question is that is the i5 REALLY NECESSARY for me to play these AAA games or is my i3 enough? 

4590 for $60 leaves you $240 for a GPU, not including if you can sell the 750ti. Puts you well into the R9 380X territory, maybe a 390 for Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales.

 

For $300 I'd say it's well worth the upgrade, especially if you're moving out of games that can run on a toaster, and into some higher graphical fidelity.

 

*edit* and no, it's not completely necessary, but IMO well worth it if you care about AA in 1080p and never going below 50fps.